You leave
this spooky environment through the back door
with your life and all
your possessions. Outside and to your left as you leave is the
double-leaf door, with the always present pad lock, leading into the
stone-lined passage to the killing pit or cellar. Those who visited this
museum with you, and others before you, will leave with a feeling that the
notorious Benders, unlike their many ill-fated forgotten travelers, live
again.

More than
130 years after the news first spread about “The Kansas Bloody Benders",
their story is still told by Kansans around campfires and noted by road
markers from the Kansas State Historical Society. Generations have
gossiped about Kate Bender and newspapers, magazines, and the movies have
portrayed her. Today, as an infamous character of the prairie, she ranks
with Jessie James, the Daltons, and Belle Starr, and still the story of
Kate lives on. On the Internet Google site, more than 2,600 daily hits
are made, a grim reminder of a dark page out of the past. Photo by Mike Gullett of the Parsons“Sun”, used by permission